Move aims to reduce violence in schools

Education Minister Azzam Al-Dakhil has directed all education departments to implement in schools a new violence-reduction program "Rifq" (to be gentle) from the first semester of the forthcoming academic year. 

The program will create awareness among students, the school community and the local community at large about activities and protective measures that will contribute to preventing violence — physical, psychological or sexual.
Abdulrahman Al Barrak, undersecretary general for education, said the guiding program would familiarize the students, the school staff and parents with the concept of violence, its causes and manifestations and the appropriate educational environment for children.

"The program will guide the school personnel and parents about the appropriate and preventive educational methods that should reduce violence. It takes into account the characteristics and needs of the different stages of the students' growth on all levels — physical, psychological, cognitive, mental and social — and will help professionals to positively explain the behavior and deal with it."

He said the program would be implemented in the fifth week of the first semester, and the fourth week of the second semester in all schools.